


Heartbeat

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, M/M, Soul Bond, Telepathy, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 07:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11375652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: It's far from the most auspicious possible meeting when drunk-driving Jack slams into Daniel's car, totaling both car and driver. Now, after months of recovery and PT, Daniel is determined to do what the police couldn't, and track down the driver of the other car. But he doesn't know Jack is hiding a secret about what happened that night that could upend Daniel's view of the world forever.Or: the one in which Jack can bring back the dead.





	Heartbeat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Themisto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themisto/gifts).



He was drunk, or he wouldn't have given in to temptation and done it. But of course, if he hadn't been drunk, he would never have been in that situation in the first place.

Jack's truck had T-boned the smaller vehicle, turning it into a mangled mess of metal and plastic. He was drunk, but not too drunk to know it was his fault. He hadn't even seen that damn little car, something small and flimsy, a Prius or whatever, offering its driver no protection from Jack's bigger, heavier vehicle. There was no chance the driver wasn't hurt, not the way that car was twisted up where his truck had pushed it through the intersection and up onto the curb. 

He hadn't seen the car, and he hadn't seen the stop sign until he'd sailed through it, and he'd already been driving a hell of a lot faster than the speed limit because it was two in the morning and he just wanted to get home and he didn't give a fuck about anything else.

Now he stumbled out of the truck, sick with horror, wishing he was drunker than he was (too drunk to even understand the magnitude of what he'd done; he would have welcomed that oblivion right now) and wishing, at the same time, that he'd died that day in Afghanistan, so he wouldn't still be here to have done this. The night was quiet except for the low rumble of the truck's engine, its headlights bathing the scene in the sole source of light. Somewhere a dog was barking. It was a quiet semi-rural street at two in the morning, and there were no witnesses. 

And the smell was pure Afghanistan battlefield, prickling his neck and forcing him even further out of the cushioning, alcoholic haze: spilled gasoline and hot metal and blood.

Down the street, Jack noticed a light in one of the windows. Had that been there before? Someone _had_ to have heard the impact as his truck slammed into the other car. Someone would be calling the cops.

Vehicular manslaughter. Even Vernon couldn't get him out of this one.

The driver's side of the other car was wrapped around the bumper of his truck; there was no getting into it from that side. Hands shaking, Jack struggled with the passenger-side door, at the same time that the almost-sober part of his brain was telling him he should just get back in the truck and drive away, get far away from this.

And at the same time ...

_If it's really bad ... if it's the worst that can happen, you can do something about this._

But he knew better. He _knew_ what happened when he did that.

He managed to get the bent passenger door open. There was only one occupant of the car, a small mercy. No kids. That was the possibility that had terrified him the most.

And the driver was dead.

There was no doubt about that, even with the only light coming from the glare of the truck's headlights. The driver of the car was pinned in the crumpled mess of the door and airbag, his face turned toward Jack, eyes open and staring. He must have died almost instantly, and Jack wished he didn't know enough about death to know that.

Jack's stomach rolled and he fought down a surge of nausea. "I'm sorry," he whispered helplessly, for all the good it'd do. "I'm sorry."

_You did this._

And on the heels of that thought, another, just as terrible: _You can fix this. You know you can._

His head snapped up and he pulled back, listening. Was that a distant siren?

More lights in more bedroom windows down the street. The collision of the two cars must've made an almighty noise. If he was going to get out of here before someone saw him, he had to go. Now.

This guy in the car ... young guy, about Jack's age. He could have kids. A spouse, a fiancée. Parents, siblings, friends. And even if he was as goddamn alone as Jack was, then he was a human being who didn't deserve to die because Jack was a fucking selfish idiot who got smashed and drove himself home from the bar.

_You can fix this._

That was definitely a siren now. There was no time to think about it, even if he _could_ think, between the alcohol and the panic and the ever-present babble, in the back of his mind, of thoughts and emotions that were not his own. 

He leaned into the car, reached out, and laid his hand on the dead man's neck. The skin was still warm, eerily so. There was no pulse.

Jack leaned forward. There was only one way he knew to do this. His lips brushed lightly across the corner of the dead man's mouth, avoiding the blood as best he could, and he breathed out softly.

He felt it happen, a chill and a cold rush through his body. Jack pulled back quickly, but he kept his hand on the dead man's neck, and was looking right into the staring brown eyes when their pupils suddenly contracted.

In Afghanistan, Jack had learned what it was like to look into someone's eyes at the moment they died, to watch the life go out of their eyes. Now he saw the instant when life came back. The blank brown eyes had been staring through him, flat as a photograph, and then suddenly they were looking _at_ him, as a pulse throbbed under his fingers -- once, twice, settling into a steady beat.

He was caught, frozen, knowing he had to _go_ \-- quickly now, while the other man, the stranger, the stranger he'd _killed_ would still think he was some kind of trauma-induced hallucination -- and yet unable to move. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like, this moment when death moved aside at his fingertips, and even knowing what he now knew, he still couldn't help being caught up in the ... it wasn't _power_ exactly, it didn't feel the same way as holding a gun and knowing he had the power of life or death over another person.

No, it was magic, and for that soft frozen instant, he and the man in the car ( _the man he'd killed_ ) were caught up in it together, staring into each other's eyes. The other man's lips moved, as if to frame a question, and the stranger's confusion and pain beat at the back of Jack's mind. That was what recalled Jack to himself, to the growing wail of sirens and the fact that he was drunk in the middle of a crime scene that he'd caused.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

The other man's brow furrowed slightly, and then his eyes fluttered shut, losing his grip on consciousness. And Jack jerked his shaking hand away, scrambled back to the truck, slammed the door without bothering with a seat belt.

"Go," he chanted under his breath, throwing it in gear with shaking hands, "go, go."

Even if it wasn't vehicular manslaughter at this point, he was still well over the legal blood-alcohol limit, sitting behind the wheel of a truck with a crumpled fender currently jammed into the body of the car he'd crushed with it. Jack gunned the engine. There was resistance, and a scraping and shuddering as the truck pulled free of the mangled car. Then he was loose, skidding in a sharp turn. He took a guess at which way the emergency vehicles would most likely be coming from, and turned the other way.

He drove down quiet, dark residential streets, shaking all over, knowing down to the core of his soul that if he did encounter a cop car right now, he was well and truly screwed. A mile or two from the scene of the wreck, he pulled over, one front wheel jolting into someone's hedge, and slammed open the door of the truck. He dropped to the street and fell to his knees and threw up.

He felt a little better afterward, though not much. His head was a mess right now: panic, disorientation, pain, and most of it wasn't his own, though some of it was. 

_Think, Jack. Think._

Anyone who looked at his truck, with its crumpled front end, was going to know instantly that it had been in an accident. It was even possible someone had seen it well enough to get a description. "Big black truck" wasn't as distinctive in a semi-rural area as it would have been somewhere urban, but it was still a pretty recognizable truck.

_Deal with that later. Right now I just gotta get home. Get away from this._

Pain pounded in the back of his skull. He managed to tune it out, more or less.

He got himself the remaining few miles home through a torturous series of back streets, avoiding the highway, avoiding other headlights. By the time he pulled the truck around back of the converted farmhouse where he lived, all he could think about was getting hammered enough to forget this shitfest of a night. He pulled the truck into the barn, which would hide the damage to the front end; he'd figure out what to do about that later, once he found out how much about the accident made the news.

His head hurt and he was scared. Those feelings, he was pretty sure, were his own.

As he stumbled out of the truck, the horse whickered softly from its stall in the dark barn, making him jump. "Not tonight, asshole," Jack muttered in that general direction. He couldn't cope with animals right now -- not the horse, definitely not the damn farm cat trying to wrap itself around his ankle. He aimed a kick at it, but the cat, which was used to his moods, evaded him easily and vanished into the darkness.

Now he felt fucking guilty about that too. Some shit night this had turned out to be. His fingers were sticky. He wiped his hand on his pants, then raised it cautiously to sniff at it. 

Blood. Dead guy's blood was on him. He thought he could taste it, though he told himself it was only his imagination. A violent shiver ran through him and he was almost sick again.

He needed a drink. Another drink. All the booze in the world, to wash away this goddamn night.

Jack stumbled from the barn to the house, slammed and locked the door behind him. Rationally, he didn't think there was going to be a sheriff knocking on his door tonight -- in the absolute worst case scenario, someone had gotten the license plate of the truck and he was going to finish out this night in jail, but he really didn't think so. 

Right now he just needed to not think about it for awhile. Not think about anything. Not _feel_ anything. He grabbed the first half-empty bottle of bourbon he found and drank it without a glass, until all the feelings, all the emotions, every last one of them -- the ones that were his, the ones that belonged to the guy in the car, the ones that he was currently getting from every single goddamn person he'd brought back from the dead since that day in Afghanistan three years ago -- was smothered in a blind drunk haze.

* * *

_Six months later_

 

"It's a miracle you're alive, you know."

"Thanks, Peggy," Daniel said. "It's not like I've heard that from anyone before, ever."

Peggy reached out to pat his arm. "You know what I mean. I'm merely saying --"

"Yes, I get what you're saying; the thing is ..." He turned away from her to look out the passenger-side window at the passing scenery. "I don't know if I want to do this."

"I could have gone alone," Peggy said brightly. "I was perfectly all right with going alone."

"I'm sure you were," Daniel muttered. "Which is why I _couldn't_ let you go alone, because you'd probably end up getting arrested for punching some innocent stranger in the face."

"Innocent," Peggy scoffed. "I am quite confident this is the person, Daniel. I've found him. That utter bloody wanker who left you for dead by the side of the road --"

"I really regret that I ever asked you to help me with this." He should have known what would happen. Peggy on a mission was like a bulldog with its teeth locked into something. She would never, ever let go. Daniel had seen what happened before when Peggy got on a moral justice tear. He just hadn't realized, although he thought he probably should have, that _he_ was going to turn into her latest crusade.

"It's no trouble at all. In fact, you can stay in the car while we're there. I don't want to put you in a situation you're uncomfortable with --"

"Peggy," Daniel said, "I say this with love, but you've been putting me in uncomfortable situations since we were college freshmen. No need for anything to change now."

Peggy wrinkled her nose at him. "Make yourself useful and help me find the turnoff. My phone GPS isn't as reliable out here."

"Yes, ma'am." He managed to muster up a smile, propped his arm casually on the door, and tried to look like he didn't want to be a million miles away.

_This was your idea in the first place, Sousa._ Well, it had also been Peggy's idea, but at one point he'd wanted it as badly as she did, if for slightly different reasons.

Peggy wanted to bring the person who'd hurt him to justice. Daniel got that. But Daniel himself ...

It was a lot more complicated, and not entirely for reasons it was possible to explain to Peggy, or even to himself.

But Peggy had been a lifeline for him since his world had been turned upside down in that car accident six months ago. Alone of the people he knew, she hadn't treated him any differently; she'd never once looked at him with pity or offered to do anything for him that he could do himself. She'd put up with his anger and depression, she'd sat with him through grueling PT sessions, she'd texted him terrible jokes at two in the morning to help get him out of his own head -- and she'd made it her mission in life to find the person who had done this to him and make them pay.

If she actually _had_ been able to do what the police hadn't, and track down the hit-and-run driver who had wrecked Daniel's car (and Daniel), then he owed her another one. He just wished, if it _was_ the guy, that he could have had a chance to talk to him alone, without Peggy being involved. Peggy, for all that she'd been his best friend since college, wasn't exactly _subtle_ , and all Daniel really wanted to do was look into the face of the person he remembered with such strange clarity and ask him: _Why? Why did you do this to me?_

"Just remember, Peg, we don't know it's the guy, okay?" he reminded her. "No punching. No cops. This is an information collecting mission, that's all."

Peggy made a crossing-her-heart gesture. "I will be perfectly well behaved."

"Yes, I've seen your idea of -- oh wait, that's it, that's the street, I think."

After a couple of wrong turns, they slowed by a mailbox with a driveway just beyond it. The trees and bushes were overgrown, draping over the driveway. The place looked almost abandoned. Only a set of fresh ruts in the driveway made it obvious that it was occupied.

Daniel took a deep breath as his chest tried to constrict.

"Daniel," Peggy said softly. He made himself look at her; her face was gentle. "If you don't want to do this, I can --"

"No." His voice cracked. He took another breath, pushing himself past it. "No, I'm okay." He managed to laugh, somewhat shakily. "It might not even be the guy, right?"

But as Peggy pulled into the driveway, he knew it was the guy. He knew because he knew this place, even though he'd never been here. The old farmhouse, the paint on its siding peeling; the way the driveway wrapped around the house; the barn behind the house, looking like a slightly run-down version of a calendar picture.

He'd dreamed about this place, and seeing it in person was a weird, uncomfortable kick in the chest. It was like the strongest case of deja vu he'd ever experienced.

Peggy drove slowly around the side of the house. The driveway had weeds growing up through it. The whole place gave off an air of benign neglect. There was definitely someone living here, though. The lawn in front of the house had been mowed (although not terribly recently) and the door to the barn stood open, with a feed bucket propping it.

A large black truck was parked behind the house. Another kick in the chest. 

"Is that the truck that hit you?" Peggy asked quietly.

"I don't know. I didn't get a good look. It could be it, I guess."

Daniel didn't remember much about the night he'd been hit, just something very large coming out of nowhere, the flare of headlights, the crunch and shriek of impact, and a feeling that was more like pressure than pain. He hadn't seen the truck, not well. All the descriptions they had of it were vague ones from witnesses in the neighborhood, none of whom had seen the collision itself.

But that could definitely be the truck.

Peggy parked behind it, the car turned at an angle. Daniel had to laugh in spite of his impending panic. "What, are you trying to block him from leaving? You realize we're in a Fusion? He could just drive right over us."

"Hush." Peggy had her phone propped on the dashboard. "I'm getting a shot of the plate."

Daniel sighed and reached for his crutch, which he'd put alongside the seat. Getting in and out of cars was still a complicated procedure. He knew he was capable of driving -- they'd been through it on a simulated vehicle at his PT sessions -- but he hadn't tried it yet.

It was nice out here, though. The air smelled fresh, like rain-washed grass and flowers, with just a hint of a barnyard smell that was probably coming from the actual barn.

"Hello?" Daniel called.

"Shhhh! Shhh!" Peggy shushed him frantically as she got out of the car. "Don't let them know we're here yet. We should look at the truck first."

"Yeah, well, I've thought of another problem with our plan, such as it is," Daniel remarked. "Look at this place. The guy who lives here could be some kind of gun nut with a whole arsenal in his basement. And, Peggy, you know we're trespassing, right?"

"Not for long," Peggy said absently, taking pictures of the truck from the back and side. "Come on around here. You said you saw his face, correct? You'd know him if you saw him again?"

"I _kinda_ saw his face. It was dark and I was in pretty bad shape. Just a glimpse, really."

But that glimpse was blazoned into his memory. Tormented, light-colored eyes; the glint of blond hair in the headlights gleaming through the window.

_I'm sorry,_ the stranger had whispered.

Peggy had been completely unsympathetic when Daniel had told her the hit-and-run driver had apologized. "Oh yes, because _that_ makes up for almost killing you with criminally reckless driving."

"He tried to help me," Daniel had said. "He didn't have to. I remember that he got in the car with me, he was trying to do first aid, I think --"

"If he really wanted to help," Peggy had retorted acerbically, "he would have stayed to face the music. He ran because he knew he did something terribly wrong and didn't want to take the consequences. Who knows how many other people he's hurt? Or will hurt, if we don't stop him?"

Now she was leaning close to take photos of the truck's bumper and grille. "Daniel, look at this," she murmured, tapping the front panel with a fist. "This has been repainted. It's not the same vintage as the rest of the truck."

"You can tell that just by looking? I sure can't."

"The paint is very recent. There are some little scratches on the door from gravel and so forth, which is what you'd expect in a truck that's a couple of years old. But I don't see that here. And --" She crouched and squinted along the side of the truck. "It's not quite the same gloss as the rest of the paint. This panel's been replaced."

"Anyone ever tell you that you should've been a detective?" Daniel asked, trying to ignore the way that his heart was attempting to claw its way out of his chest. "Tell Senator Phillips he needs to raise your salary or you're going to start moonlighting in the police department."

"There's a surprising amount of detective work in politics, actually --" Peggy began absently as she examined the truck's side panel.

"What are you two doing?"

The voice came from the other side of the truck. Peggy jumped so violently that she lost her balance and had to catch herself on the side of the truck before straightening up. Both of them looked guiltily over the truck's roof.

The man who had spoken was sitting on a horse, a smallish horse with a glossy brown coat. He was backlit by the sun, forming a halo around his blond hair, making him almost seem to glow.

"You're trespassing," he said, his voice cold.

"Yes, I tried to tell her that," Daniel began, and then his eyes adjusted to the sharp contrast between sun and shade, and he got a good look at the man's face.

He hadn't been completely sure he'd recognize the guy from that night if he saw him again. As he'd told Peggy, it had been dark and he'd been in terrible shape. As much as it seemed like those features were blazoned into his memory, he hadn't been sure he'd know the guy if he saw him again.

But now he was sure. There was no doubt. It _was_ him -- the man from that night.

And he was staring at Daniel as if he'd seen a ghost.

 

***

 

Jack's head had gone quiet.

His fucking _head_ had gone quiet, for the first time in three years. The only thoughts, the only feelings in there were his own.

He'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

All he could do was stare at the guy who was now staring back at him, this brown-haired, brown-eyed stranger whose face Jack had last seen covered with blood and lacerations, whose lips he'd breathed life into.

And there was nothing in Jack's head except his own shock, his own surprise, his own confusion.

He wasn't even entirely sure when it had happened. He was so used to pushing it back, tuning it out -- and he'd found that riding horseback really helped, not as much as drinking, but anything physical that let him concentrate on his body instead of what was going on in his head was a welcome distraction. The absence had crept up on him while he was distracted, and then slammed into him full force when he looked across the truck into a pair of confused and equally surprised brown eyes.

"Daniel," the woman said, and Jack looked at her, startled. For that shocked moment, he'd completely forgotten she was there. "Daniel, is that him?"

"Yes," Daniel said softly, still staring at Jack.

The woman launched into motion, striding around the bumper of the truck. Daniel lunged for her with a gasped "Peggy, no!" but his hand swiped through empty air. That was also the moment when Jack realized that Daniel was standing with a crutch, and his lurching step as he went after her made it very clear that he hadn't made it through the accident unscathed.

But then, Jack had known that already; he'd certainly gotten enough feedback of Daniel's pain, stress, grief (and it was weird to know his name now, when he'd spent the last six months feeling the secondhand echoes of a nameless stranger's emotions).

" _You,"_ the woman, Peggy, declared in a tone of loathing.

The horse flattened his ears and attempted to rear. Jack caught the reins and forced the horse's head down; he still wasn't the world's most skillful rider, but he could tell that Razor didn't like having an angry woman getting in his face. Well, Jack could relate to that. He hoped Razor would try to bite her, but no such luck.

"You're trespassing," he said again, in the hopes it'd help this time.

"And you," Peggy snapped, catching the horse's bridle with a casual hand and pulling its head down herself, "are the negligent _criminal_ who nearly killed my friend."

"Peggy, Peggy, Peggy," Daniel chanted, crutching as fast as he could around the front of the truck after her. "Peggy, no. Peggy, let me talk to him."

"What is there to talk about?" With one hand clenched on the horse's bridle, keeping Jack from going anywhere, the Peggy woman plunged her hand into her purse and came up with her phone. "Now that we know who he is, we can call the sheriff and have this man arrested for his crimes."

"Stop!" Jack snapped, leaning forward across the horse's neck, just as Daniel said "No!" at the same time and caught Peggy's wrist, trying to get the phone away from her.

"Daniel, kindly let me go," Peggy said between her teeth.

"Will you two get off my land, for God's sake," Jack said, trying to extricate his horse from Peggy's implacable grip.

"Only to return with the sheriff," Peggy informed him.

"Could we talk to him first?" Daniel asked, and Jack looked at him -- and wished he hadn't, because Daniel's eyes caught his own and it was just ... too much. He'd watched those soft brown eyes come back from death, and now they were alive and warm and ...

It was too much.

He'd never meant to have anything to do with ... Daniel ... God, it was weird, knowing his name. He hadn't wanted that either. He just wanted these two people to fucking _leave._

And, at the same time, he didn't. Because his head was quiet, and it was like a cloud lifting, even with the woman staring at him as if she thought she could make him spontaneously combust through pure hatred.

And he didn't want this to stop. Not yet.

"Peggy, please," Daniel said quietly, and Peggy clenched her jaw and put her phone away. She unfolded her fingers from Razor's bridle. As soon as he was released, Razor took a quick, dancing step backward, as if he wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and this woman. Jack didn't blame him.

He had to regain control of this situation, so he managed to paste on a smile that almost felt natural. "You two want to come in for coffee? You must've driven a ways to get here." Taking in the woman's nicely tailored office attire and Daniel's open-necked polo shirt, he added, "Down from Albany, I bet."

"I don't see how that's your business," the woman said sharply.

Jack grinned at her. Now that she was no longer dangling off his horse's bridle, he found her open hostility refreshing -- and a lot easier to deal with than Daniel's soft-eyed curiosity. "Hey, you turn up trespassing on _my_ land, I'm the one should be calling the sheriff. I'm being awfully nice to you two."

Peggy sucked in a breath. Daniel quickly stepped between them; he could move pretty well with that crutch, despite the hitch in his step. Jack tried not to look at it -- tried not to have any feelings at all about it.

"I'm Daniel. Daniel Sousa. This is my friend Peggy."

Jack looked down at the offered hand, and suppressed the urge to take Daniel's fingers in his own. He thought about not giving them his name, but it wasn't like they couldn't just look it up from the county records, since they knew where he lived. "Jack Thompson. Let me put the horse away, and then we'll have a nice chat."

 

***

 

Daniel and Peggy followed Jack back to the stable, where he unsaddled and unbridled the horse and released it into the paddock. Daniel kept watching him, staring at him rather, but trying to be less than completely obvious about it -- looking for more hints of familiarity, he admitted to himself, like the eerie feeling of deja vu that kept catching him when he looked around Jack's farm. It didn't make him feel any better that Jack kept sneaking looks at _him_ , staring at him in a completely weirded-out way when he seemed to think Daniel wasn't looking.

Peggy caught his arm. "Are we actually doing this?" she whispered fiercely. "Are we having a polite cup of coffee with the man who nearly murdered you? I could just put in a quick call to the sheriff's department --"

"No," Daniel whispered back. "I don't want the cops involved, not yet."

Her anger faded to puzzlement as she frowned at him. "Daniel, why _not?"_

Why not. Yeah, that was the $64,000 question, wasn't it?

_Because more happened that night than I've told you about. I don't know WHAT happened, but something definitely did. I came out of it different, in more ways than just the obvious ones, and the only person who can tell me is the one other person who was there ..._

"I just don't, okay? This is important to me. Come on, Peggy, it's my life, my leg. Give me this."

Peggy hesitated before slipping her phone back into her bag. "For you," she conceded. "For now."

"Face it, you're a little bit curious too. You want to know what he has to say for himself."

"I'd rather he told it to a judge," Peggy muttered, slinging her purse strap over her shoulder and shoving her hands in her pockets.

Something bumped Daniel's leg. He looked down in surprise to find a small gray cat rubbing on him. It had an odd, corkscrewing gait, as if there was something wrong with its hind legs.

"Is your cat okay?" Daniel asked. He reached down to pet it. After sniffing his hand, the cat let him scratch its ears.

"Got hit by a car," Jack said. He threw the saddle over a fence rail and shook out the horse blanket.

"Well, that figures," Peggy said, acid on her tongue. "Of course you would be exactly the sort of negligent pet owner who'd let your cat run out into the road."

"It's a stray," Jack said defensively. "I'm just the sucker who's feeding the damn thing to keep it from starving, okay? Don't pet it, it's got fleas."

He took his own advice, completely ignoring the cat as it followed them hopefully back to the house, and then shutting it outside the door.

Daniel had guessed from the outside that the house was fairly old, and the inside confirmed his impressions: low ceilings, lots of big, heavy wooden furniture, and actual foot-worn flagstones on the floor of its small, sunny kitchen. It was kind of a mess, cluttered with beer cans, empty pizza boxes, and dirty dishes. Daniel found himself looking automatically for family photos -- it seemed like the sort of place that would have them -- but instead there were generic paintings of sailboats and sunflowers on the walls, sports team photos in frames, that kind of thing. The house had the same eerie familiar/not-familiar feeling as the farm itself, a place dimly remembered from dreams.

"Family home?" Daniel asked, trailing a hand across the countertop. Hand-cut wood, from the look of it, scarred by year upon year of knife gouges.

"Someone's family, anyway," Jack tossed off. He checked the coffeepot on the counter, which was about half full with its warming light on, and started rinsing mugs in the sink. With a dry twist of sarcasm in his voice, he added over his shoulder, "I'm not exactly prepared for entertaining. You want something with your coffee, there might be a box of stale Oreos in the cabinet up there."

Peggy promptly opened the cabinet, and the one next to it. Daniel scowled at her; he totally recognized Peggy's "snooping" mode. What the heck did she think she was going to find, crime scene photos and a signed confession?

There wasn't much in the cabinets. Old boxes of cereal, opened boxes of crackers, canned stuff. The house was a very odd combination of not-lived-in and _too_ lived in.

"There's hazelnut creamer in the fridge, if either of you likes that sort of thing, and that's about all I've got," Jack said, pouring coffee into mismatched mugs. "There might be sugar around somewhere. Let me know if you find any," he added, raising his voice at Peggy, who had moved around to the cabinets over the sink.

Peggy had the grace to look slightly sheepish. She abandoned her snooping efforts and accepted the cup Jack handed her. Peggy, Daniel knew, hated coffee; if she really wanted to stay and chat, she'd have asked if there was tea. Apparently the burden of being actually friendly was going to fall on him, which was ironic given the circumstances. 

"Creamer, please," he said meekly.

Jack's fingers brushed his as the cup was placed into his hand -- which made Jack jerk his hand back, as if that was more than he'd meant to give. "Creamer it is," he muttered, and yanked open the refrigerator door like it had offended him. "There's a deck outside, by the way. You all want to talk, we could go out there. It's a nice day."

The deck was a small wooden one, looking out on the trees screening the house from the road. There was some cheap plastic patio furniture, and a rocking chair that looked antique. Daniel couldn't help thinking that a few pots of flowers would really brighten up the place, make it look a lot nicer and more like somewhere people lived, rather than a slightly run-down place to crash. 

The cat appeared instantly, jumping up on the rocking chair and purring when Daniel rubbed its head.

Jack sat down at the patio table, leaned back, crossed his legs, and said casually, "So are you two here to blackmail me, or what?"

Daniel choked. Even Peggy looked taken aback.

"What? No!" Daniel protested. "No blackmailing! Definitely not!" The last part was mainly aimed at Peggy, because she'd stopped looking surprised and started looking speculative.

"Uh-huh." Jack clasped both hands around the coffee cup, holding it just under his chin -- _defensively,_ Daniel couldn't help thinking. His body language was relaxed, and he was smiling slightly, but it all had the feeling of armor to Daniel, that deliberately casual pose. "So you just happen to show up here, just the two of you, and you're walking around my truck, taking pictures ..."

"So you admit there is something to blackmail you about," Peggy declared.

"Peggy --"

"Are we just going to tiptoe around it all day? Every person here at this table knows what you did. The very least you could do is admit it."

"Why should I admit anything," Jack asked quietly, "when you two are so happy to play judge and jury?"

"Guys," Daniel interjected. "Guys, stop it. Peggy, look, I appreciate the defense, I do, but I can speak for myself."

"And here I thought you let her do all your talking for you," Jack said, his eyes bright with a sharp, angry light.

"Are you a jerk all the time, or just some of the time?" Daniel couldn't help asking.

"I'm told it's a defense mechanism," Jack said, with that same weird, brittle brightness.

"I don't know why we're wasting our time here --" Peggy began.

Daniel closed his hand over hers, giving it a quick squeeze. "Can I talk to him alone?" he asked. "Just for a few minutes. It's not you, it's just ... I want to ask him some things. Uh -- Jack, can we --"

Jack stood up in a single sharp movement, and set his coffee cup on the table. "Sure. Why the hell not. Let's take a walk."

Daniel followed him down the steps, navigating carefully with his crutch on the slippery wood. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw Peggy watching them leave with an intent stare, but she was staying put. She gave him a little, supportive smile when she saw him watching her, then looked down as the cat jumped up in her lap. Peggy idly stroked its head.

"I wasn't kidding about that thing having fleas. 'Course," Jack said, glancing back, "it's more likely it'll catch something from _her_ ..."

Daniel stopped in his tracks. "Look, I get defense mechanisms and all of that, but you shut up about Peggy, right now."

"Girlfriend?" Jack asked lightly, hands in pockets, rocking back on his heels.

"Best friend for the last decade. _Not_ a girlfriend. But family. And no one trash-talks my family in front of me. Okay?"

"You obviously come from a very different family than I do." Jack's voice was still light, the tone of someone cracking a joke. He strolled around the corner of the house, taking them both out of Peggy's sight and hearing. "So what'd you want to talk about? Guy talk, nothing for the delicate ears of a --"

"I wanted to ask if you -- if you _did_ something to me, that night."

He was unprepared for Jack to not just flinch, but go pale, jerking away, putting more space between them. "What do you mean?" Jack demanded, his voice sharp. He sucked in a breath and went on, in a more normal tone, "I thought getting the third degree from your friend was bad enough, but what'd you do, drag me over here to -- look, you _know_ what I did --"

"No, I don't," Daniel interrupted. He reached out and put his hand on Jack's arm, deliberately. Jack flinched and stiffened under his touch. "Look, I -- I know that you -- I'm not thinking about that part right now, on purpose, because what I want to know is something else entirely. I didn't want to talk about this in front of Peggy because I haven't told her. And it's possible that this isn't something real; I mean, maybe I'm going nuts or something."

"What makes you say that?" Jack asked quietly. He hadn't removed Daniel's hand from his arm, Daniel couldn't help noticing; he could feel the heat of Jack's skin through his shirt. Jack's stormcloud-gray eyes were intense, focused on Daniel's face.

"I've been having ... dreams." It was strange to say it out loud. "Dreams about you."

Jack's forced smile looked like the grin of a corpse. "What, nightmares? Or the _other_ kind of dreams? I guess I should be flattered --"

"Neither," Daniel said impatiently. "I've been dreaming about _you._ About this farm. I've never been here before, but I know there are apple trees behind that barn that bloom in the spring -- aren't I right? I know there's an old well house next to the barn with moss on the roof. I know --"

"Okay, okay! Shut up!" Jack yanked his arm away and took a step back, widening the space between them. He was very pale, and sweat had broken out on his face. Daniel stared at him; he had been prepared for everything from evasiveness to Jack laughing in his face, but he hadn't prepared for _that._ Jack looked like he was about to faint or have a heart attack.

"Are you okay?" Daniel asked before he could stop himself.

"You're asking _me_ that?" Jack made a strangled sound, which Daniel only realized was laughter when Jack leaned a hand on the side of the house and went on laughing quietly to himself.

"Yeah," Daniel said. "You really don't seem okay."

Jack looked up at him, eyes narrow. "What do you actually remember about that night?"

It was Daniel's turn to be taken aback. By now he'd told the story to enough people, from cops to doctors to therapists, that the emotional intensity had (mostly) worn off, but he still had to work to gather up the raveled threads of his memories. "Not really a whole lot. I don't remember the actual accident. I was driving back to Albany from a weekend work retreat, and it was late, and I was tired. There's just a vague impression of sound and movement and headlights, and then I remember waking up afterwards, and -- you were there in my car with me. I think you were doing first aid or something. I remember you were touching me, and looking at me, and you apologized. And then -- I guess I passed out or something. I've got some bits and pieces from the ambulance ride, but the next thing I remember clearly is waking up in the hospital."

Jack let out a shuddering sigh. He looked oddly relieved. "Well, that's ... look, why are you asking me questions about this, then? You obviously remember it. And you remember I was there, so I don't even know where the curiosity comes in, or why you're stopping Marge back there from calling the cops --"

"No, you don't get it, it's the _dreams_ I don't understand," Daniel protested. "Seeing you at the crime scene, okay, that's one thing. And I guess I could write off the dreams as my subconscious trying to deal with what happened to me. Except -- it's been happening for six months, and not just when I'm asleep." He saw a flash of that odd expression on Jack's face again, fear and shock and more. "Like, just glimpses of things. I've seen you riding that horse, for example. Or ..." He hesitated, not wanting to admit how intimate some of the things he'd sensed had been. Flashes of loneliness and misery, most of them. Jack wasn't a happy person.

"Look -- I --" Jack scrubbed his hands across his face, running his fingers through his hair. "Can't you just -- walk away from this? You can press charges, I don't care. Just leave. Don't ask any more questions."

"No. I can't." _Especially not now._

"And that _woman_ is sure as hell not gonna stop coming," Jack muttered. He looked at Daniel sharply. "You said you haven't told her, your friend Peggy? She doesn't know about your dreams, about any of it?"

Daniel shook his head.

"Okay, well, that's something, I guess." Jack turned away, looking at the trees rather than at Daniel. "You're probably gonna think I'm crazy when I say what I'm about to say."

"Crazier than having dreams about a place I've never been?"

"Yes," Jack said, unsmiling. "So here's the thing. You didn't survive the crash. You died that night."

At first Daniel thought it was just Jack trying to put him off. He started to smile, but it fell away at the utter seriousness on what he could see of Jack's face, just a sliver of clenched jaw in turned-away half-profile.

"What do you mean?" he asked quietly. "What do you mean, I died that night?"

"You died. My truck hit you and you died."

"Okay -- but --" Daniel looked around, at the trees waving gently in the wind, the blue sky above. His stomach felt cold. "This is real, right? I'm not dead right now, am I?"

Jack barked a sharp laugh. "What, you think I _Sixth Sense_ 'd you or something? No, dummy, you're not dead. Not anymore. I brought you back."

"You what?"

Jack gave him a quick, sardonic look. "Is this entire conversation going to be you asking obvious questions and me having to repeat myself?"

"It'd be easier if you didn't keep saying things that sound completely freaking _insane!"_

"You're the one who asked," Jack said dryly.

"Yeah -- but -- all right, so." Daniel decided he might as well embrace the crazy. Later, he could work out how much of it he believed. Right now he just needed information. "You say that I died and you brought me back. How?"

"How? I don't fucking know how!" Jack spread his arms in a gesture of surrender, frustration, or both. "I don't know how this works. I don't know _why_ it works, let alone why me. But here's what I do know." His body language gathered in, becoming tight, controlled. "People don't quite come back right, most of the time. It's not _healing,_ exactly. I didn't fix you. You'll notice ... that ..." He waved at Daniel's crutch. "So I dragged you back from wherever you were going to be, trapped you in a broken body. That tends not to end well, most of the time."

Through all the confusion, anger flared in Daniel's chest. "I don't feel trapped. I'd rather be alive."

"You say that _now,"_ Jack sneered. "How about all the pain, all the despair, those nights when you looked at the pain pills in your medicine cabinet and thought about what'd happen if you just took the whole handful and made it all _stop_ \--"

"Wait, _what?"_ Daniel stared at him. "How do you know about -- wait, you've been dreaming about me too?"

Jack blanched and looked away again.

"What have you -- what the hell? You just stood there, let me tell you all of this, and you already know -- about --" Daniel had to stop himself; his chest heaved, heart pounding. It was a feeling of terrible violation, and now he understood why Jack had looked so shocked and pale. "How much do you know about me?" he asked, trying to keep his voice calm. "How much did you dream?"

"It's not ... dreams," Jack said slowly, not looking at him. He started walking, slow enough that Daniel could keep up, wending on a trail toward the barn. "Not just dreams. Actually when I'm asleep is just about the only time that it's _not_ happening, at least not much. It's always there, all the time, like a radio playing in the back of my head."

"What is?" Daniel asked, looking sideways at him. "My, uh ... me?"

"Emotions. Feelings. Pain. Stuff like that. And don't flatter yourself. It's not just you."

Daniel zeroed in on the one part that he could handle right now. "What do you mean, it's not just me?"

Jack snorted; his lips curved in a small, humorless smile. "You aren't the only one I brought back. There's actually four of you. Well, three. One killed himself. The others probably will. And that's what I mean. This isn't a _gift._ You don't come back right from being dead."

Daniel took a few deep breaths to keep himself calm. _Nothing's changed,_ he told himself. _Nothing's different. I'm still ME, just as much me as I was yesterday, or six months ago._ "Are you feeling what I'm feeling right now?"

They'd reached the horse corral. Jack draped an arm over the top bar. His hair gleamed in the sun, and Daniel had an odd urge to touch it, to smooth down the flyaway strands. 

"No," Jack said at last. "That's the weird thing. I don't. I can't hear you right now, and I can't hear the others either. It stopped as soon as you showed up."

"Uh ... good?" Daniel ventured. That was a relief, anyway. He was still trying not to think about having had someone else as an unwanted guest in his head through what was probably the worst six months of his life. It was bad enough having Peggy around, having her privy to his moments of weakness, despair, and doubt.

Jack gave a soft laugh, and this one was unexpectedly genuine, catching Daniel off guard, along with the oddly gentle smile that went with it. "You have absolutely no idea. For the past three years I've been -- well -- anyway. I can't hear anything in my head right now except my own thoughts and it's ... amazing."

He was grinning now, staring straight at Daniel with those stormcloud eyes, and Daniel couldn't help grinning back.

Which of course was when Peggy showed up, arrowing toward them through the weeds and bypassing the path entirely, with the cat draped affectionately over her shoulder. "You two are getting along unexpectedly well," she said, looking back and forth between them as she approached.

"Which is why I wanted to talk to him alone," Daniel pointed out. But when she got close enough, moving up on Daniel's side of the corral and keeping her distance from Jack, he reached out to give her hand a quick squeeze. "Thank you for giving us some space."

"Yes, well, you were right. It is your choice." Peggy gave him a level stare, and then turned her gaze on Jack, where it grew several shades frostier. "Daniel can be a very forgiving person, especially when it comes to matters of his own welfare," she told him. "I am not ... at least, not with people who hurt my friends."

"Gotcha." Jack glanced between them, his wariness back in full force. "So what are the chances there's gonna be a county sheriff knocking at my door later today?"

Daniel shook his head; it wasn't so much a decision as the affirmation of a decision already made. "We're not going to turn you in."

"Sure you don't want to consult the boss about that first?" Jack inquired, with a side glance at Peggy. He either didn't notice Daniel's scowl, or didn't care.

Peggy heaved a sigh that seemed to come up from her toes. She carefully took the cat and set it on the ground. It rubbed around her ankle and then limped over with its awkward gait to rub on Jack's leg. "I'm not going to override Daniel on this," she said, although the look she gave Daniel indicated that it was going to be a rather awkward car ride back to the city. "But -- Daniel -- I want you to have the closure you need, but I only got a half-day off work, and it's an hour's drive back to Albany, so we really need to get on the road."

For just an instant, Daniel thought about asking her to leave him there. They weren't _done._ He wanted to know so much more about what had happened, all the tantalizing little clues that had been dangled in front of him. He could have Jack give him a ride up to Albany later --

... but that was stupid. Jack was a total stranger. _Oh hey, I'd like to take up your whole day so we can talk about an incredibly awkward subject ..._ No.

"Get back to what, exactly?" Jack asked Peggy. "What d'you do? Middle school principal? IRS auditor?"

"Political aide. I'm in Senator Phillips' office."

Jack flashed a quick grin. "Hey, that's what I do, too, off and on. Guess we probably know a lot of the same people."

"Small world. Whose office?" Peggy asked. She didn't smile, but her eyes were a little warmer.

"Senator Masters."

A quick flash in Peggy's eyes; the friendliness died. She touched Daniel's arm. "Come on, Daniel; I'm not even going to have time to grab something to eat before I have to be back to work."

Daniel fell in behind her. "Hey," Jack called, and Daniel turned back. Jack's face held a strange mix of emotions, particularly a veiled hope. "I'm gonna be up in Albany tomorrow. I know it's short notice, but, uh -- you want to get lunch? Maybe -- talk a little more?"

"Uh -- yeah. Sure."

"There's a little place not too far from the Capitol. Cafe Hudson. You know it?"

"Sure," Daniel said. "Peggy and I go there sometimes. Uh. Noon?"

"Noon," Jack said, and another of those quick, ray-of-sunshine grins left Daniel dazzled all the way back to the car. 

Peggy had to extricate herself from the cat in order to get into the car; it had apparently decided to follow her home. "What exactly is happening here?" she demanded as she put the car into gear.

"What do you mean?"

"Daniel! We came out here to collect evidence on the person who put you in the hospital and nearly killed you! Didn't we?"

Daniel made what he hoped was a noise of vague agreement.

"And we found him -- at least I think we found him -- and now you're going on a _date_ with him?"

"It's not a date," Daniel protested. "It's complicated."

"I knew I shouldn't have let you talk to him alone," Peggy muttered, pulling out onto the road. Sun-dappled leaf shadows flickered over the car. "He said he was sorry and you forgave him -- is that what happened?"

"Peggy --"

"Daniel, he works for Vernon Masters! Do you know anything about Senator Masters?"

"I try to know as little about politics as possible. That's your area. The only thing that makes living in the state capital bearable is ignoring everything political as much as I can."

"Senator Masters," Peggy said grimly, "is just about the most corrupt man in the entire hotbed of scandal and corruption that is New York politics. Anyone who's involved with him is someone _you_ don't want to be involved with. Especially since I'm guessing Jack is one of _those_ Thompsons, the politically connected ones. I didn't make the connection at first -- it's a common name, after all. But if he works in Masters' office, the odds are good that he's related to them."

"Let's pretend I have absolutely no idea who they are, so you can explain using small words."

Peggy sighed. "They're lobbyists, fixers, you name it. They don't run for office themselves; they just pull strings behind the scenes. No wonder the police didn't pursue your accident, if the family knew one of them was involved. And that's even leaving aside the fact that he nearly killed you. Daniel, I don't know how you can look him in the face. I really don't understand."

"I don't understand either," Daniel admitted. That much, at least, he could tell her. "Just, Peggy, please. Don't go to the police with this. It's not like we have enough to build a case on anyway. It's a black truck with the front panels replaced. That's not evidence."

"He as much as admitted that he did it. We can't let them get away with --"

"For me, Peggy. You said it was my choice."

After driving in silence for a moment or two, Peggy reached out to squeeze his hand. "For you. But I'm keeping those pictures I took, just in case we need them for evidence. And _please_ , Daniel ... be careful."

 

***

 

There was definitely a part of Daniel that couldn't help thinking Peggy was right. Maybe he could "forget" and work through lunch today; was that really such a bad idea? He'd probably be better off if Jack didn't even show for their lunch not-a-date ...

\-- but no such luck; Jack was already waiting when Daniel walked through the door, a few minutes late after having to deal with a cab in the snarl of lunchtime traffic around the Capitol. Jack raised a hand to wave from a table in the back, but Daniel had already seen him. And, damn it, Jack cleaned up _good._ He was wearing a crisp light shirt with no tie, his jacket thrown over the neighboring chair, hair slicked back -- a startling change from the slightly scruffy guy with a couple days' growth of beard that they'd talked to yesterday.

Daniel was suddenly, painfully aware of his sweat-stained shirt and the awkwardness of the crutch, making it hard to maneuver through the densely packed tables. Jack had scrambled to his feet by the time Daniel got there; he started to hold out his hand and then dropped it to his side, and for a moment they just stared at each other in a shared agony of uncertainty and embarrassment. Then Jack grinned a little and gestured to the chair across from him. "Have a seat? Tell you the truth, I didn't think you'd come."

"I almost didn't," Daniel admitted. He reached for the pitcher of ice water in the middle of the table. "Wasn't sure if you'd show, either. I mean, I could've showed up with cops for all you know."

Jack smiled crookedly. "That thought crossed my mind. But you seem like too much of a straight shooter to do something like that."

That got under his skin, raised his hackles. "You don't know me." Jack's only answer was a smile that was more like a grimace. _Or maybe you do._ But then, it went both ways.

As he poured himself a glass of water, Daniel asked softly, "Did it ... come back? After I left? All the -- voices. And stuff."

"Kind of," Jack said, looking away. He twisted his fingers on the water glass, holding it like a man used to having a drink in his hand. "But it's sort of like the volume's turned down. Easier to ignore."

Daniel couldn't quite bring himself to ask what he wanted to ask: _Was I there? In your head?_ He hadn't been able to stop thinking about it all last night, unable to sort out the tangled confusion of emotions surrounding it. Was Jack watching him eat dinner? Take a shower? He'd told himself it didn't quite seem to work that way -- he'd only had a single flash of Jack's emotions once last night, and it hadn't been nearly as devastatingly unhappy as what he usually got; this time it was more like intrigued, nervous anticipation. Daniel thought it might have had to do with him, but it seemed like even more of an invasion to ask.

"And it shut off as soon as you walked in here," Jack went on, even more quietly. "Like someone turned the volume knob all the way down."

"Why? Does it always do that?"

"Always how?" Jack looked genuinely confused.

"Well ... when you're around the people that you ... you know. Saved."

Jack winced at Daniel's particular choice of words. "I don't know. I try to stay as far away from them as possible."

"Really?" Daniel was genuinely baffled. He couldn't really imagine what it would be like to do what Jack could do, but surely you'd want to get to know someone in person if you had that much of a connection to them.

Jack opened his mouth, his expression suggesting he was on the verge of an angry retort, but the waitress arrived just then to take their order. After she left, Jack said in a more normal tone, his face composed again, "You know, I already asked what your girlfriend did for a living --"

"She's not my girlfriend," Daniel said automatically. By now he'd gotten so used to correcting people about his and Peggy's relationship that it was second nature.

"-- but I didn't ask about you. You on Phillips' staff too?"

Daniel shook his head. "No, I've got about the most boring job that it is possible to have. I'm an IT tech for an insurance office."

Jack snorted. "Okay, you're right. But it's not like working in politics is nonstop drama and excitement, no matter what TV would have you believe."

"Trust me, I know; I've been on the receiving end of more than a few of Peggy's rants about it."

"So what is the deal with you two?" Jack asked. By now Daniel was braced for Jack's questions to have barbs in them, especially where Peggy was concerned, but there was no biting subtext this time. "Look, if you say she's not your girlfriend --"

"She's not," Daniel said, exasperated. "Seriously, man. I'm gay. You've been in my head for six months; didn't you know that already?"

Jack blinked, and the open surprise on his face was perhaps the most honest emotion Daniel had seen from him so far. "Oh."

"That was ... not really how I meant to say that." And suddenly cast their lunch in a whole new light. Though he would've been lying if he'd said he hadn't wanted --

_He hit you with his freakin' car, Sousa!_ he reminded himself. _That's not a meet-cute; that's vehicular assault._

And yet, when he probed at his own emotions, there was no anger, no resentment. The thing was, he'd been getting Jack's emotions (some of them, at least) for six months. If there was one thing he knew for sure, it was that Jack regretted the accident with everything in him. And Daniel had never been the kind of person to carry bitterness around with him. 

Maybe when you'd had someone else in your head for that long, it was impossible to really hate them, at least without also hating yourself.

Maybe he'd been falling a little bit in love with Jack Thompson for six months, without ever realizing it -- one more little bit with every tiny sliver of Jack's soul that had been revealed to him.

 

***

 

Jack couldn't help a surge of relief that Daniel couldn't see inside his head right now. At least, he didn't think so.

Maybe he had known, on some level, that Daniel wasn't straight. He'd definitely picked up reciprocal vibes back at the farm.

But it was such a bizarre situation, feeling each other's feelings, getting to know each other as intimately as most people did after knowing each other for months or years -- while never knowing each other's names, never seeing each other's faces.

And now, he was caught off guard by the surge of _wanting_ that filled him.

He wanted to reach across the table and fold his fingers over Daniel's.

He wanted to kiss Daniel, really kiss him, not an impersonal brush of lips to bring him back. He wanted to know what Daniel's lips tasted like. And the way Daniel was looking at him now, soft and open and startled, as if Daniel had just come to some sort of realization, made him think it might not just be him.

Being able to feel Daniel's emotions would've really come in handy right now.

Daniel's lips parted as if he meant to say something, but he was silenced by the arrival of their food. Jack picked up his burger and took a bite, suddenly aware that he was hungry, more so than he had been in awhile.

He also wasn't hung over this morning, for the first time in ages. He'd started to drink last night as usual, but stopped after one glass, all too aware that Daniel might be picking up on it. And that thought had made him feel ... self-conscious, guilty? He wasn't sure. 

All he knew was, he didn't want Daniel to think badly of him. Which was ridiculous. Jack had literally hit him with his car.

But Daniel was here. He might be angry at Jack, might hate him, might resent him --

_Except you know he doesn't, Thompson, you idiot. You've been able to feel what he feels for the last six months._

If only he'd figured out a little more of what _he_ was feeling on the farm. He was all too aware of how public the restaurant was. He wasn't precisely closeted -- not entirely. But he was also well aware that his ability to pull on the family's political strings (and it wasn't like he was going to be able get another job right now, considering that he lived an hour out of town and his resume since he got back from Afghanistan consisted entirely of "part-time political aide") relied heavily upon not making waves or creating any scandals.

"You do what you want down there on that farm of yours," his father had said to him once -- the closest they'd ever come to talking about it openly. "You do what you want out there, but in town, you keep your nose clean and don't do anything that'll blow back on the family. Got it?"

He'd wondered what his father thought he was doing on the farm, exactly -- holding wild gay sex parties? On the other hand, considering some of the political scandals that had blown through Albany during the time Jack was growing up, his father was used to being around people who _would_ consider a drunken orgy full of hookers and cocaine an acceptable way to spend a weekend.

The irony was that his father would probably be far less bothered by his son getting caught with a (female) hooker -- boys will be boys, after all -- than if he got caught kissing a man in public.

And the _really_ crazy thing was that right now, he didn't care at all.

He looked across the table at Daniel, who had somehow managed to get a smear of mustard on his nose. Daniel glanced up, caught Jack watching him, grinned and looked down again.

God. They were flirting like teenagers. This, after having been in each other's heads for months. 

But it was different, very different, to be face to face with each other.

"Hey," Jack murmured, and Daniel looked up again. Jack dunked the corner of his napkin in his water glass, reached across the table and swiped the mustard away.

Reckless.

But not the hopeless kind of recklessness that had led to him tearing down quiet rural streets at unsafe speeds when he was one step away from blackout drunk. This was something else, the same kind of feeling he'd gotten when he signed up for the Marines -- a recklessness that felt like it might lead to freedom.

(The Marines hadn't worked out that way at all. But that didn't mean nothing ever would, and that was a kind of hope he hadn't had in years.)

Daniel caught his breath. He reached up to touch Jack's hand, a light flicker of his fingers across Jack's.

Jack leaned forward. The awareness of every other person in the restaurant burned like hot coals on the back of his neck, but he was an adult, damn it, and he _wanted_ this. He moved slowly, giving Daniel ample time to pull away if he wanted to. 

Daniel didn't pull away.

His lips were soft and warm. His mouth parted under Jack's.

It wasn't a long kiss, but when they separated and Jack retreated to his side of the table, Daniel's eyes were wide and bright.

"So," he said, and caught his breath again. "I wasn't, uh, reading any signs wrong."

"Guess we both weren't."

"I guess not." Daniel grinned, sudden and bright; it took Jack's breath away. "Who would've thought something good would come out of that damn accident?"

Something good. Not how Jack ever would've described himself. "Daniel ..." he began, cautiously. "I can't expect you to -- I mean, it's got to be hard, looking at me, knowing that I ..." He couldn't get the words to come out.

"Not as much as you might think." Daniel's grin had faded to a smile, softer, with something a little wistful in it. "Not as much as _I_ would've thought. Look, it's the past. We can't change it."

"Yeah, I know, but -- I need you to know," Jack said, peeling himself down, layer by layer until he got to the naked sincerity at the bottom. "I know I should've called for help. I -- I panicked. And after, after ... you know, after I did -- the thing I did -- I was feeling _your_ panic too, and pain, and ... it made it hard to think. I didn't handle it well."

"I'm not sure how well anyone would've handled it."

"No, but the point is, I _know_ I should've stayed 'til the authorities got there. I should've faced the music for what I did. I didn't do that, and I can't change that, but I need you to know that it stopped, that night. I've been so goddamn careful. Not because I'm trying not to get caught, god no, but because I don't ever, ever want to do what I did to you to anyone else. I don't even drive late at night if I can help it, and I don't set foot in the truck if I've had even so much as one beer."

Daniel blinked. Something strange happened on his face.

"Wait, you were _drunk_ the night you hit me with your car?"

Jack stared at him. Daniel had been in his head. How did he not know that?

_The same way you didn't know he was gay, I guess._

"I thought you knew," he said stupidly, numb with shock.

"No. No, I did not know." Daniel took a deep, shaking breath and blew it out, puffing out his cheeks. "Ah," he said, almost to himself. " _There's_ the anger. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't feeling it."

"Wait," Jack said, as Daniel stood up and reached for the crutch. "Wait --"

"How drunk were you?" Daniel asked, wrapping his hand around the crutch's grip. "Drunk enough you knew you shouldn't be driving?"

As always, Jack could feel his defensive barricades coming up. Crouch down and fight when threatened -- it was the only thing he knew to do. "You _knew_ I was driving recklessly," he snapped, pushing his chair back so he could stand up. "You think I hit you on purpose, or what?"

"No, I thought you made a mistake." Daniel's knuckles were white on the grip of the crutch; the tendons in his neck stood out above his collar. The worst part was how quiet his anger was -- and Jack had felt that from the inside, come to think of it, the way Daniel wrapped up anger and contained it, only letting small flashes of it show. "Everybody makes mistakes. I was okay with that. But you were -- how goddamn drunk were you, Jack? How many times had you done that?"

"Too drunk to know better, that's for sure!" Jack shot back. He hated the way his voice dripped with venom, wanted to take it back, but couldn't. _Thompsons don't back down. Thompsons don't apologize._

"I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me if you did it before, Jack! Is that something you had a habit of doing?"

"Yes, it damn well is, but the point is," Jack snapped, because he felt he should get credit for this, if nothing else, "the point is, _I haven't done it since that night."_

"Who the fuck cares?" Now the anger burst out of Daniel, so heated that it made Jack take a step back. He was bigger and he had two working legs, but now he could see why Daniel kept a lid on this most of the time, because Daniel angry was _fucking terrifying._ "What you're telling me is, you _knew_ you were too messed up to drive, you did it anyway, you had a _habit_ of doing it anyway -- God damn it, Jack, if it wasn't me, it was going to be someone eventually, you know that, right? Maybe a car full of kids --"

"Keep your voice down. People are staring at us."

"Fine. I think we're done anyway." Daniel turned on his heel. "Thanks for lunch," he shot over his shoulder before retracing his torturous route through the densely packed tables to the exit.

Jack stared after him, and hated himself more in that moment than he'd realized was possible.

 

***

 

"Daniel!"

The voice was accompanied by a knock on the door. Actually, it was more like pounding on the door.

Daniel groaned and raised his head from the couch. He'd started being able to feel Jack's emotions about halfway through the afternoon, and it was still there no matter how hard he fought to tune it out, guilt and misery and despair that he had to struggle not to drown in. He'd made it through the rest of the workday somehow, and he'd come straight home, flopped on the couch, and turned on Netflix. His leg ached; he should've taken off the prosthesis when he got home, but he was just so damn _tired._

There was a beer on the coffee table, gone warm and flat by now. He'd come home with a desperate craving for a drink, cracked open the beer, and then realized that he couldn't tell if the person who wanted a drink was himself or Jack. Every time he started to reach for the beer, that uncertainty ( _is it me? him? is there even a difference anymore?_ ) sent a shiver of revulsion through him.

"Daniel!" Peggy's voice said again. "If you don't answer, I'm using my key."

"It's not locked," Daniel called, pulling himself upright on the couch and rubbing his eyes. "At least I don't think so. C'mon in."

Peggy came in carrying a large, flat box. At the sight of it, Daniel groaned. "We were meeting for dinner. Shit. I forgot."

"At that pizza place you like," Peggy agreed, putting the box on the counter. "I tried texting you."

"Phone's on silent and I'm not answering it."

"Ah." Peggy pulled out a stool from the kitchen island. "I'm going to guess your lunch with Jack Thompson didn't go well."

"You were right," Daniel said heavily. "You were right and I was wrong. Let's just leave it at that."

"Oh, Daniel." She abandoned the stool and came to sit with him on the couch, bringing the pizza box with her. 

"I'm surprised by the lack of I-told-you-so."

"It's a sacrifice," Peggy agreed. "Have some pizza." She pushed the box toward him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Did he? That was a good question. Daniel busied himself with the pizza, because he was very much afraid that the answer was "yes", except ... where could he ever _start?_ There was no way he could explain what had happened without going all the way back to the night of the crash, and everything Jack had told him, and everything that had happened since ...

"I'll get us some plates," Peggy declared. She came back with plates and a beer she had helped herself to from his fridge, as well as a fresh one for Daniel.

God, he loved this woman. He might not have been wired to view her in a romantic way, but the day they'd both signed up for the same introductory economics class had been one of the luckiest days of his life.

And what about that night six months ago, when he'd met Jack? The worst night of his life, he would have said. _Should_ say, especially knowing what he now knew. And yet ...

It was easier to tune out Jack's unhappiness when Peggy was in the same room, offering a more effective distraction than the TV. But there was still a part of him that couldn't help aching with sympathy, even knowing Jack deserved every bit of the misery he was currently feeling.

"Yeah," Daniel said quietly, wiping grease off his fingers. "Yeah, I do want to talk about it. But this is going to involve telling you some things I haven't told you yet. About me ... and about Jack."

Peggy raised her eyebrows. "Not a date, was it then?"

"It's not -- I don't -- Okay, yes, fine, it _was_ a date. I kissed him and -- that's _not_ what I was going to tell you." Daniel reached for the beer and took two long gulps, wishing he wasn't flushing beet red.

"If he was rude or hateful about it, I'll happily --"

"Peggy. Please don't offer to beat up Jack on my behalf. No, he was actually pretty responsive to it. After that, though ..." 

He hesitated. Telling Peggy that Jack had been driving drunk at the time of the accident was tantamount to waving a red flag in front of a bull. She already thought Jack was a menace. At the moment, Daniel wasn't convinced she was wrong, but at the same time, he didn't want to give her that much ammunition against Jack, unless he was prepared to accept the consequences if she pulled the trigger.

... which he wasn't, not right now, not with that presence in the back of his mind that was soft and regretful and just _sad._

_You asshole,_ Daniel thought angrily, _it'd be so much easier to like you if you'd be like that on the OUTSIDE, too._

"After that?" Peggy prompted softly.

Daniel took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. He drained the rest of the beer. "Peg ... have you ever had anything really inexplicable happen to you? Like, something that can't be explained by science. Ghosts, or dreams that came true, that kind of thing?"

"Not as such, no. My cousins claimed to have heard my great-grandmother's footsteps upstairs occasionally in the old family house, but I never did."

Of course she hadn't. Peggy had her feet solidly planted on the ground. No ghost would dare show its face around her.

"I have," Daniel said, very quietly. "This is going to sound insane. I know you won't believe me, and I don't blame you. But ... let me tell you this, all the way through. Give it a chance. Okay?"

Peggy nodded.

So he told her. He told her about how, ever since he woke up in the hospital, he'd been getting flickers of emotions that, he gradually realized, were not his own. He'd gotten to know Jack from the inside before he had ever met him. With only a slight hesitation, he told her about the things Jack had told him: that he'd died and Jack had brought him back, and that Jack had been hearing Daniel in his head, as well.

He kept a few things back. He didn't tell her about Jack's assertion that people usually came back wrong -- he still wasn't quite sure how he felt about that -- and he didn't tell her about the drunk driving thing. 

To her credit, as impossible as all of it must have seemed to Peggy's practical turn of mind, she listened without interrupting or even looking terribly skeptical. When Daniel finished at last, Peggy gazed at him for a long moment without speaking.

"I know how it sounds," Daniel said, embarrassed. "I mean, it's crazy, really." She still hadn't said anything. "Come on, Peggy, give me a hint here. At least tell me what you think."

"I don't know what I think," she said slowly. "Coming from anyone else ... but, Daniel, I _know_ you. I know you aren't the sort of person who makes up things like this. I trust your account of your own experiences. I still don't know if I can credit the claim that --" She hesitated before pushing the words out. "That he brought you back from the brink of death --"

"From actual death."

"Either way, I don't know if I can believe that." Or didn't want to, Daniel thought, looking at her. "The rest of it ... I don't know what the explanation is. If it had happened to you once, I suppose it would be easy enough to dismiss as a dream. But -- you say it's been happening consistently since the accident."

Daniel nodded. "It's happening right now."

Peggy looked curious. "What do you feel? Or, I should say -- what does he feel?"

"Sad," Daniel said after turning inward for a moment, trying to focus on sensations he'd spent most of the afternoon struggling to tune out. "Hurt. Resentful of -- oh, come on Jack, _really?_ There's some resentment in there for me, I think, not taking his apology at face value -- c'mon, seriously, he didn't even actually apologize. But mostly just sad, and sorry, and regretful. I don't know why he can't just _say_ it ..."

He trailed off; Peggy was gazing at him. "You really _can_ feel what he's feeling."

"I told you I could."

"Yes, I know, but ... it's different when you're telling me about it as it's happening. Your _face._ I could see it on your face right now, everything you were telling me." She brushed her fingertips through her hair, carefully coifed at the start of the workday, now starting to come out of its hairspray hold. "I need another beer."

"I'll get it," Daniel said. "I need to stretch my legs anyway."

As he limped into the kitchen -- not bothering with the crutch, using furniture for support -- the thought occurred to him that he felt a lot better. Just telling her about it had really helped a lot.

And he then noticed something else, something that made him stop in front of the refrigerator, staring blankly at the door. The snatches of Jack's emotions he kept getting in his head were less miserable. Jack was still unhappy, but now it was a calmer feeling, like Jack had begun to relax and quit beating himself up quite so much.

_I think, now that I'm feeling better, it's helping him too._

Was it possible that his unhappiness and Jack's had been feeding off each other, cycling around and around, getting worse and worse? Now, his more contented state of mind seemed to be feeding into a general relaxation of Jack's tension and distress.

Daniel wasn't sure if it was possible to actually send messages this way, but he tried to project soothing calm in Jack's direction. _It's okay, jerk. I don't hate you. I'm not entirely sure WHY, but I know you didn't mean to do it, and I know you want to make up for it in your own weird, messed-up way._

"Daniel?" Peggy asked from the couch, jolting him out of his reverie and making him aware that he was still staring mindlessly at the fridge. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." He got out two more beers. "Peggy, can I borrow your car tomorrow?"

"So you can go see Jack?" Peggy asked, twisting around to put her arm over the back of the couch. She always had known him too well. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I know I can't leave it like this." Especially not with Jack's now-muted guilt nudging at him. It wasn't like they could just break up (not that there was much to break up in the first place; all they'd shared was a single kiss). But the only thing that seemed to get either of them out of the other's head was being in the same place. If he let Jack walk away, he'd have to deal with Jack's guilt and regret for, probably, the rest of both of their lives.

_One killed himself,_ Jack had said, of the other people he'd brought back. What had _that_ felt like? Daniel shied away from thinking about it.

"Even if he feels remorse, Daniel, don't mistake it for actual lack of wrongdoing."

"I _know_ that. But I can't walk away, Peggy. Not like this. I can rent a car, if you don't want to --"

"No, you can borrow mine," Peggy sighed. "Do you want me to come with you? I don't think I can do it tomorrow, but the weekend --"

"No. I'll go alone."

"You could just wait until he's back in Albany. Assuming he isn't here now."

"He's not." Daniel couldn't tell his exact proximity to Jack, but something about the tenor of Jack's thoughts made him think Jack was back at home on the farm.

"Right." Peggy gave him a long, thoughtful look. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"You're telling me."

 

***

 

Guilt had never been much in the way of a useful emotion, in Jack's experience. Guilt paralyzed. Guilt crippled. Right now, guilt had him hiding out on the farm. Unfortunately, he couldn't _forget_ Daniel, not with Daniel's emotions flickering at the back of his mind (not always there, but often).

He noticed when Daniel's anger faded into other feelings (intrigued/curious/content) and figured Daniel had managed to get his mind off Jack and distract himself with other things. And that somehow hurt too. _I'm right there in the back of your head too, aren't I? Forget me, will you?_

He spent the evening on the deck systematically downing most of a bottle of bourbon to try to drown out other people's feelings _and_ his own.

But he felt oddly better in the morning -- achy and tired, but he was doing better at turning off the emotional tap that wouldn't stop dripping at the back of his brain, and Daniel, at least, seemed to be pretty cheerful today, though with a background hum of nervousness/trepidation. Jack probably _should_ have guessed what that meant, but he didn't, right up until the point when the emotional clutter went silent like a switch had been flipped.

He was out in the barn fixing a busted hinge on the horse's stable door. The cat, lying on top of a pile of hay, jerked his head up when Jack froze and then straightened slowly.

His head was quiet, like a cloud lifting. Every single damn time, he forgot what it felt like, the way mental clarity trickled back when he had only his own thoughts to listen to.

He left the stable door leaning against its frame and went out into the pasture. Leaning on the top fence rail, he watched the same small gray sedan from yesterday drive into the yard and park behind his truck.

It was only Daniel who got out of the car, though. No sign of his not-a-girlfriend. Jack ducked under the fence rails and wandered over, dusting off his hands on his pants.

"Didn't know you could drive with that leg," he said when he got close enough, and then winced inwardly. Way to open up the conversation. What he really wanted to ask was _What are you doing here?_ He'd thought Daniel had made his feelings pretty clear the day before, and Jack didn't blame him.

On the other hand, Daniel had the same problem Jack did: too many of someone else's feelings in his head. And there was only one way to shut them off.

_Don't read too much into this,_ he thought grimly. _He might just want a little mental peace and quiet, same as you._

"Yeah, I can drive." Daniel smiled hesitantly. "First time I've done it since the accident. Not as hard as I thought it was going to be. Like riding a bike, I guess."

It was possible that the nervousness Jack had been sensing from him had nothing to do with Jack and everything to do with driving. _Not everything is about you, asshole._

"So are you, uh ..." Daniel touched his temple. "Hearing anything?"

"Quiet as a ghost town. Stopped as soon as you turned onto my road, I think. You?" 

Daniel nodded. "About when I turned off the highway, so yeah."

Jack half-smiled. "We could do some scientific testing. Figure out how far from each other we can be from each other and still get the side effects. You could buy a nice little house at the end of the block and never have to see me at all."

Daniel's brown eyes, oddly soft, searched his face, and Jack found himself right back in that peculiar situation where he was enjoying the mental quiet and at the same time wishing he could still sense Daniel's feelings so he'd have some advance warning of what to expect. It just figured that this oddball curse deprived him of telepathy in the exact circumstances where it would actually come in handy.

"Is that what you want?" Daniel asked quietly.

"What do _you_ want?" Jack retorted. He didn't think it was an unreasonable question; Daniel was the one who had driven down from Albany, after all.

"I wanted to talk," Daniel said. "I ... uh." He leaned back into the car and came out holding up a canvas shopping bag. "I brought groceries."

This startled a laugh out of Jack. "You _shopped_ for me? What the hell."

"Well, you're basically in the middle of nowhere," Daniel said defensively. "I would've asked if you wanted me to pick you up anything before I drove down, but that would have been awkward, so I just got some things I thought you might want. Milk and bread and that kind of thing."

It was thoughtful, intrusive, and bizarre; he didn't know how to deal with it. "Anything in there gonna spoil if it sits in the car for a few minutes? I'm doing some yard work and I need to get a hinge put back together before I knock off for a chat."

Daniel looked startled. "Uh ... sure. Yeah, anything that's spoil is in a cooler. Anything I can do to help?"

"Sure, I could use an extra set of hands putting the door back on."

In a way, Jack sort of minded having an audience, but there was also something flattering about the idea of Daniel watching him do something he was good at for a change. And he _was_ actually good at working on the farm. He hadn't been at first; his limited experience with the country (other than Afghanistan, which was a different kind of thing entirely) had been restricted to summer camp, a few family vacations at seaside resorts and quaint Vermont inns, and road-tripping around central New York with his buddies back at Cornell. Slumming, basically. Owning his own place, having to learn how to do everything from fixing the well pump to planting fruit trees, had been an education.

And he'd be the first to admit that he hadn't been keeping the place in tip-top condition. As Daniel followed him back to the barn, he found himself glancing around and noticing everything as Daniel probably saw it -- the trees that needed trimming back, the shed that had halfway collapsed in the heavy snowstorm last winter, the old tractor he'd meant to fix up which had ended up just sitting in the weeds beside the barn while moss grew on top of it.

But hell. Daniel was the one who decided to show up without an invitation ... twice. If he didn't like the way Jack ran his place, that was his problem.

"Did you grow up out here?" Daniel asked.

Jack barked a sharp laugh. "Hell no. Nah, I came back from my tour overseas and figured some clean country living would be good for me."

Daniel looked at him like he was inspecting Jack's comment for traps. "You were in the Army?"

"Marines." Jack opened the barn door for both of them. The cat came up to be petted, and Daniel leaned down to scritch at its fleabitten ears.

"That must've been hard," Daniel said. "I mean, with the, uh ... thing you can do."

"How d'you think I figured out I could do it?" Jack asked shortly. "Here, let me get this hinge put back together and you can help me get the door back on."

The horse had been on the far end of the pasture, standing in a shady spot under a tree, but now it came wandering over to find out what they were up to. Daniel petted its nose while Jack worked on the hinge. "What's its name?"

"Razor," Jack said. "Be careful, he bites. Just push his head away if he tries it."

Daniel pulled his hand back just as Razor tried to nip at him. "That's an odd name for a horse," he said, giving the horse a wary look.

"He used to be called Satan, apparently. I renamed him after I got him, because like hell I was going to have a horse named Satan kicking around the place."

"Why Razor?"

"Because," Jack said, screwing the hinge carefully back into its worn grooves on the door, "I got him after he got into some old barbed wire on the back of my property. Got himself all tangled up. Stuff's a menace. The owners were going to sue, but I talked 'em into letting me buy the horse off their hands and take care of the vet bills and all of that."

Daniel went quiet. When Jack glanced up, he saw that Daniel was inspecting the scars on the horse's neck and shoulders. Razor flattened his ears; he didn't like having a stranger poking at the cords of scar tissue that ran under his mane.

"You're gonna get bit or kicked in a minute, if you're not careful."

Daniel stepped back, giving the horse some space. He turned his thoughtful gaze in Jack's direction. "So tell me, Jack ..."

Shit, Jack thought. Well, Daniel wasn't stupid; he was probably going to figure it out eventually.

"... was this horse _dead_ when you found it?"

Jack stood up and got a good grip on the loose door. Should've stopped in the barn for work gloves, but oh well, a few splinters weren't the end of the world. "Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to? Okay, I'm gonna hold this in place, and I need you to screw down the hinges. The holes are already there. Just line 'em up."

"Uh ... okay." Daniel located the cordless screwdriver on top of the nearest fence rail. "Jack ... you said the cat got hit by a car ..."

"Are you gonna make me stand here and hold this all day? You're the one who wanted to help."

"Right." Daniel crouched awkwardly with his leg out to the side and pressed the hinge flap carefully into place. Jack couldn't help the way his gaze was drawn to Daniel's long fingers, the curve of his shoulders and the soft-looking nape of his neck. 

"I'm right, though, aren't I?" Daniel asked as he screwed down the hinge. "The horse, the cat -- this place is a ... a ..."

"Rest home for defective, formerly dead pets?" Jack asked sarcastically, bracing his shoulder against the door.

"Well, I wasn't gonna put it _that_ way." Daniel straightened up and got to work on the second hinge. The thought occurred belatedly to Jack that it might have worked better to do it the other way around -- top one first, then the bottom -- but hell, he'd never done this before. "So your ... whatever it is that you do, it works on animals too?"

"Apparently." 

One thing Jack hadn't anticipated was that working this closely also brought Daniel into very close proximity. His shoulder was nearly touching Jack's, and when Daniel glanced at him, Jack was caught off guard by how thick his eyelashes were.

"Do you get feelings from the animals, too?" Daniel asked.

"Not really. A little bit, every once in awhile, but mostly not. Maybe they don't have the right kind of mind for it, or something."

"Hmmm." Daniel lowered the cordless drill. "Is that all you needed me to do?"

"Yeah." Jack indulged in a moment's brief regret as Daniel stepped back, putting more space between them. He gave the door a test swing and left it open so Razor could come and go from the stall as he wanted. "Guess we ought to go put those groceries away. And thanks for that, by the way."

"Hey, if I'm gonna drive down here from Albany, I may as well make sure you have something other than stale Oreos to offer guests."

"In that case, there better be caviar and four kinds of cheeses in that cooler."

Daniel's grin was almost shy; it did weird things to Jack's chest. "I hope you'll settle for Oreos that aren't stale."

"I guess if they're free." Jack closed the barn door behind them. "Not working today?"

Daniel looked away guiltily. "Called in sick. Well, I told them I had some medical appointments today."

The reminder of Daniel's many, many medical appointments caught sharply behind Jack's breastbone, but he couldn't help grinning anyway. "Playing hooky, huh?"

"Stop that, I feel guilty enough as it is. I'm all out of medical leave, vacation, _and_ personal time by this point, and they've been really great to me. I just ..." He shook his head. "I needed to do this."

"I don't get why. Thought you hated me."

"Did you?" Daniel asked quietly, trying to meet his eyes as Jack kept dodging his gaze. "Is that what you felt from me?"

He could lie to himself, but it was hard to lie to someone who was able to get inside your head. "Anger. Same thing, right?"

"No," Daniel said. "Not the same thing." 

They'd reached the car. Daniel took the canvas grocery bag and left the cooler for Jack -- which only made sense; it needed two hands. 

In the kitchen, Jack unceremoniously went through the fridge, tossing everything that was past its expiration date (which was almost everything) and replacing it with the various staples Daniel had picked up. Daniel leaned an elbow on edge of the kitchen sink and watched him.

"You want to make yourself useful, go ahead and make a fresh pot of coffee."

Daniel grinned wryly and rinsed the pot in the sink. "I like your place, by the way. I don't think I ever said that."

"Can't argue there. I like it too." Jack stuffed a couple of empty pizza boxes into the overflowing trash can, using them to tamp everything down. "When I came back from being deployed, I wasn't really sure what to do with myself." Understatement of the year. "I went around looking at houses, didn't ever expect to _want_ to live this far out of town, but as soon as I set foot on this place ... it's hard to say. It was so _quiet._ Felt like I could breathe here, in a way I couldn't in Albany."

As he measured out coffee into the basket, Daniel said quietly, "Having to deal with other people's thoughts all the time, I guess the fewer people you have around, the easier it is?"

Jack's instinctive urge was to duck the honesty and laugh it off, but it wasn't like there was much use with Daniel. The somewhat horrifying thought occurred to him that he might not even be able to lie to Daniel at all. As soon as they put enough distance between them for the empathic connection to come back, Daniel was going to feel Jack's guilt and figure it out.

"Something like that, I guess," he mumbled. Digging to the bottom of the grocery bag, he'd finally come to the package of (non-stale) Oreos; he tossed it to Daniel. "Make yourself useful and open these."

 

***

 

It was easier, much easier, than Daniel had expected, being here with Jack. He'd been braced for a whole lot of feelings that just hadn't materialized -- anger, resentment, unhappiness. The revelation about Jack's drunk driving had been the hardest part. Now that he knew -- and after six months of having to deal with Jack's misery about it -- he found that he was coping okay.

They went out on the deck with coffee and the bag of cookies.

"If you don't mind me asking," Daniel said, brushing off one of the chairs, "how did this happen? Your ability to do this, I mean. Does it run in the family, or did something happen to you, or what?"

"Well, that's not a loaded question or anything." Jack's smile didn't reach his eyes.

"You can tell me it's none of my business."

"I'd _love_ to tell you that, but ..." Jack sighed. "I guess it _is_ your business, in a way. And the answer is, I don't have any idea. Nobody in the family has ever mentioned anything like this, but hell, I never talked to any of them about it, either. Some of my older relatives, great-aunts and that kind of thing, were a little bit ..." He waggled his hand. "Like, I had a great-aunt who was a medium. Fortune telling, you know. There were a few people in the family like that, a few generations back. Nobody who's still alive that I could ask."

"And you found out in Afghanistan?" Daniel asked quietly.

Jack nodded. He curled his hands around the coffee cup as if to warm himself, though the day was already getting hot as it crept toward noon. "A few buddies and me were under fire. Guy in my unit took a round ... I guess you can see where this is going." His eyes were distant, staring into the past. "It was instinct. I guess it was a sort of a kiss goodbye. Or maybe I knew what to do and didn't know I knew."

"A kiss?" Daniel asked softly.

Jack half-smiled, though there was still that eerie lack of emotion in his eyes. Daniel wished he could sense what Jack was feeling now, and at the same time, he was glad he couldn't. "Yeah, it sounds ridiculous to say this, but what I do is ... it's kind of like a kiss. Except there's nothing sexual about it. Hell, I did it to the _horse._ I just ... lean close and breathe out a little bit. It feels like I'm -- like I'm breathing life back into somebody."

Jack's lips on his. Jack, in the car, breathing life back into him. He hadn't been conscious for it -- hell, he hadn't been _alive_ for it -- but he could still feel it with sudden, shocking clarity, as if some part of him did remember after all.

"Anyway," Jack said, the smile evaporating, "he was the first guy I did it to, but it didn't _heal_ him, just left him a real mess who never actually died. Well, didn't die that day. He got sent stateside and killed himself a few months later."

_God. Jack._ "You felt that."

"Sure did," Jack said, his face still creepily empty of emotion.

Daniel wanted to reach out and touch him. Wanted to hug him. Wanted to put his lips on Jack's and maybe, just maybe, breathe some life back into _him._ Instead, he said, "Have you talked to anyone since you got back?"

To Daniel's relief, this got some emotion to break through the emotionless wall, a brief flare of anger. "Who the hell am I gonna talk to? Besides you, I mean."

"I don't mean talking about bringing back the dead, necessarily. I just mean therapy. Look, it's obvious to me that you're carrying around a whole lot of shit that can't be doing you any good. There are people who can help with that."

"Yeah, and what am I supposed to tell a therapist? Anybody except you is gonna think I'm crazy." His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. "Maybe I could arrange to hit a therapist with my car, bring her back, and then I'd have somebody else who'll believe me. Plus a whole load of somebody else's brand new shit in my brain to deal with."

"You can't feel it now, though, right? I mean, with me here, you aren't getting other people's emotions at all?"

"No," Jack said, and he looked suddenly ... empty. Lost. Alone. Sad.

Damn it. Daniel had come out here uncertain whether or not he could still hate the guy, but it was impossible to hate someone who hated themselves that much.

Instead, he scooted his chair around next to Jack's. "You breathed life into me," he said softly.

"I shouldn't have said that," Jack muttered. "It sounds stupid even to me."

"Not to me." Daniel rested his hand lightly on Jack's face, tipping his chin up, turning his face so Daniel could look into his gray-green eyes. His heart hurt at the pain he found there. "So ... like this?" And he found Jack's lips, very gently, with his own.

The kiss went on and on. When their lips finally parted, Daniel rested his forehead against Jack's for a minute before pulling away.

"Like that?" he murmured.

"No, not exactly like that. For one thing, when I did it the first time, you were dea --"

Jack's voice cracked; his face crumpled.

"Jack?" Daniel asked, startled and suddenly worried.

"I'm sorry," Jack said.

"I know you are. I've been in your head, remember?"

"Yeah, I know, but --"

Daniel wasn't expecting Jack to suddenly wrap his arms around him and pull him in for something that wasn't quite a hug. It was more like clinging. Jack pushed his face into the crook of Daniel's neck, shuddering.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm so, so, so sorry. I know it doesn't make up for it, but I was serious, I haven't driven after drinking since that night, and I'm trying to drink less, I really am -- it's just that, it stops the voices, and sometimes I need to --"

"Don't. Don't," Daniel murmured. He stroked his fingers through Jack's hair. "Look, I don't ... I'm not gonna lie and say that everything's okay, but I don't hate you, I'm not even angry. I ... look, I've seen the inside of your head, parts of it anyway, and I _know_ you're sorry, I know how much it's been breaking you up. Anyway, there's one good thing that happened that night."

Against his shoulder, Jack said indistinctly, "What in the hell _good_ thing happened the night I killed you and fucked up your life?"

Daniel pressed his cheek against the top of Jack's head. "I met you."

For a long, silent time, they stayed like that, Jack half out of his chair in Daniel's arms, Daniel with his face in Jack's hair and his arms around him. The moment was broken at last when the cat jumped up onto the table and started trying to poke one paw into the Oreo bag.

Jack detached himself, wiped at his face, and swatted at the cat. "Knock it off, idiot."

"Does the cat have a name?" Daniel asked. Completely undeterred, the cat rubbed against Jack's hand and he scratched its ears with a put-upon look.

"No. It's just a stray. Car hit it on the road out there. I ... well ... you know what I did." Jack's twisted half-smile was a little less bitter this time, a little more genuine. "And I haven't been able to get rid of it ever since. Kinda like you."

"Yeah, it's almost like, once people get a look at the inside of your head, they start liking you."

Jack snorted. "Cat can't see in my head."

"How do you know? Something I wondered about," Daniel said, "is how come that horse used to be called Satan."

"Because he's a nasty son of a bitch, that's why. He tried to bite you, remember?"

"Yeah, but when we showed up the first time, you were riding him just fine," Daniel said. "He likes you. Maybe the animals know what you did for them."

"Maybe you need to stop talking now."

Daniel grinned. "Make me."

Jack leaned over and shut him up.

Their kiss was fiercer this time, clashing teeth and heated breath, and when Daniel came up for air, he discovered that Jack had his hands under the edge of Daniel's shirt and Daniel had started unbuttoning Jack's. Jack was flushed, his hair tousled.

"So I'd just like to point out," Jack said, "in the interests of giving you a full tour, this house has a bedroom."

"I'd very much like to see your bedroom."

It took him a couple of tries to get on his feet, and when he reached for the crutch, he saw Jack's face start to crumple again. Daniel reached out and laced their fingers together.

"You're gonna have to deal with it," he said quietly. " _I_ have to deal with it. If you don't want to look ..." He had to take a quick breath. He hadn't been with anyone since the accident -- and not for awhile before; his last relationship had ended a year or so ago, and Daniel wasn't a one-night-stand kind of guy. He had no idea how a sex partner was going to react to the leg.

Jack stopped him with a quick kiss. "It's not -- I don't want you to think --" He broke off and rested his cheek against Daniel's. "I'll deal with it," he said, almost to himself.

 

***

 

The bedroom was at the back of the house. Jack winced in self-consciousness at the state of the place -- the sheets were pretty clean, but there was laundry everywhere, and a clutter of beer cans and empty bourbon bottles on the nightstand. A fan turned slowly overhead; the bedroom didn't have A/C.

But then Daniel's mouth found his again, and he stopped caring.

They undressed each other in the sunlight filtering through the half-closed curtains. Daniel hesitated when Jack started to undo his pants, but then he let Jack push him down onto the bed, let Jack work his pants down and explore the scarred territory of his thigh.

It was hard, very hard, for Jack to push down his own guilt. But, damn it, Daniel was right: Daniel had to deal with it, so Jack was going to have to deal with it, and if he let guilt tie him up so badly that he made Daniel feel self-conscious, all he was doing was taking Daniel's problem and making it all about himself.

"Does it hurt?" he asked quietly, kissing the scarred skin. 

"No. Not anymore. Not right now. There might be some positions that are harder -- I haven't been with anyone since ..." Daniel trailed off. "Guess we'll have to figure it out."

"Guess we will."

They figured it out.

 

***

 

Some time later, they were tangled together, sleepy and naked, the light breeze from the fan drying the sweat on their bodies. Jack couldn't remember a time since he got back from Afghanistan that he'd felt this relaxed, this _good_ \-- and, hell, not for awhile before that, either.

"Penny for your thoughts," Daniel murmured, playing with the blond fuzz on Jack's chest, and Jack laughed.

"You'll just have to wait 'til you drive back up to Albany to find out."

"Actually, I was sort of hoping to stay the night."

"Ah," Jack murmured, nuzzling into Daniel's neck. "So that's why you brought groceries."

"Let's just say I believe in preparing for everything."

"Mmmm. Boy Scout."

"Yep."

Jack huffed a soft laugh against Daniel's neck. "So, do I have to worry about your terrifying ladyfriend tracking me down and giving me the shovel talk?"

"Peggy can come on a little strong at first, but I think she'll like you, once she gets to know you." Daniel pulled back a little so he could look at Jack's face. "There ... is going to be time to get to know her, right? I mean, this isn't just ..."

"No," Jack whispered, running a thumb over the corner of Daniel's mouth. "No, it's not."

"Mmmm."

A little while later, as Jack was drifting on the edge of sleep, trying to figure out whether sleep was going to win before he got uncomfortable enough to get up, use the bathroom, and get something to eat, Daniel said quietly, "You know, I've been thinking, about that thing you said ... that people come back wrong, when you do this."

Jack winced. "That was a jerk thing to say."

"Well, yeah." Daniel stroked lazy fingers through Jack's hair. "But I can see why you'd think that, if the only people you'd ever gotten feedback from are messed-up, disabled military vets. I kinda felt like, when I was back in Albany, the way you were feeling and the way I was feeling were sort of -- feeding on each other, in a way. Like, when I wasn't happy, you were getting that, and I was getting that from you, and it was just kind of a loop, you know? I wonder if you and those other guys haven't been doing that to each other for years, just making each other more and more miserable."

His first urge was to deny it. But he was trying not to do quite so much of that anymore, and when he thought about it, Daniel's theory did actually make sense. "I ... don't know. Maybe."

"Because the animals seem to be basically okay, and _I'm_ okay, at least I think so. So maybe everyone else is going to be okay too."

"You're okay, I'm okay, everyone's okay," Jack grumbled.

Daniel kissed the top of his head. "Sometimes things _are_ okay."

There was a sudden buzzing sound from the vicinity of their discarded clothes. They both jumped; then Daniel laughed. "That's someone's phone."

"Not mine. Mine's in the living room, I think."

Daniel leaned off the bed and groped through the clothes on the floor until he found it. "Hey, speak of the devil. Text from Peggy. She wants to know how things are going."

"Take a selfie," Jack said lazily, and grinned when Daniel blushed.

"Yeah, Peggy and I are close, but not that close." Daniel tossed the phone onto the nightstand. "I'll text her back later. Let her draw whatever conclusions she wants from that." He turned to curl closer to Jack, and Jack tried to convince himself that it didn't make him feel warm and fuzzy.

He failed.

And yeah, there was still a lot to work out -- his family were dicks, Daniel lived and worked in Albany while Jack had the farm, and they'd still have to deal with the empathy thing whenever they were apart; hell, there wasn't even any guarantee that Daniel wouldn't get sick of him in a week.

But for right now, all he wanted to do was lie here and feel the flutter of Daniel's heartbeat. Steady, reassuring. Alive.

And maybe being alive was a pretty okay thing to be, after all.


End file.
